Posts Tagged ‘Pike and Shot’

Pike And Shot: Tercio To Salvo [official site] is an intimidating name for an expansion. You might know what a pike is, you almost certainly know what a shot is, but what the devil is a Tercio? An abrupt Italian Count? And what about Salvo? A cut-price branded soothing skin ointment?

Fear not. Even if you don’t know a keil from a kurassier, Pike And Shot is a splendid wargame and will help you to familiarise yourself with the intricacies of European warfare from the Italian Wars through to the early 17th century. Tim Stone applied his considerable knowledge to the original release last year and, judging by the too-few hours I’ve spent with it, I’d highly recommend it as well.

The Sixteenth Century equivalent of a Tiger tank was called a tercio. With a crew of between 1000 and 2000 souls, it moved extremely slowly, relying on its porcupine bristle of polearms for defence and its buttresses of constantly circulating arquebusiers and musketeers for attack. To have faced one of these ball-spewing, smoke-wreathed behemoths in battle would have been truly terrifying. To have had one (or three – they usually operated in trios) at your disposal as a general, would have been incredibly empowering. Why aren’t tercios as famous and fondly regarded in PC wargaming circles as the iconic Panzerkampfwagen VI? Search me. Pike and Shot proves that they can be every bit as satisfying to steward as their Sherman-savaging descendants.

Are you ‘feature complete’ yet? Have you written that novel, made that parachute jump, found that special someone? By my calculations my own personal beta test still has about 250 years left to run. Circa 2264 the handful of people that backed my 1970 Kickstarter campaign will get an email thanking them for their patience. The email will include the following changelog.

On May 14th this year, Castello di Pavone, one of Northern Italy’s swankiest strongholds, was invaded by an army of conflict-obsessed game developers. Were the devs in question…

a) Laser-scanning the fortress for a level in the soon-to-be-announced Hidden & Dangerous 3?b) Laser-scanning the fortress for a level in the soon-to-be-announced Commandos 5?c) Laser-scanning the fortress for a level in the soon-to-be-announced Bella Cantarella*?d) Attending Home of Wargamers 2014, a Slitherine Group press conference?

*Flare Path Soft’s debut project – a poison-sprinkled serving-wench sim set during the War of the Holy League.